Made In America, the two-day music festival, kicked off its third annual event in Philadelphia on Benjamin Franklin Parkway while a sister festival premiered on the East Coast in Los Angeles. With a bicoastal star-studded lineup, the Labor Day weekend event was expected to be the most anticipated event of the summer bringing in more than $10 million of revenue to the Philadelphia economy along with a record number of attendees. The final numbers aren’t out yet, but with numbers doubling from the event’s first to second years, (40,000 in 2012 to 80,000 in 2013) the City of Philadelphia hopes to have attracted 100,000 people into the city on an otherwise slow weekend.
The event kicked off on Saturday with a killer lineup including Kanye West, Steve Aoki, and R3hab (both of the latter split their time between Revel’s final weekend(internal link) in AC and MIA Philly). Kanye used the stage as a platform to speak about race issues including the struggles he and Kim (who was also in attendance with kid sister, Kendall Jenner) face as a famous “interracial couple”. In typical Kanye fashion, Kanye decided to “do his own thing” in his set which included an additional rant, two different masks, and distorted visual images of the performance projected onto the screens. Live stream stations were scattered around the four stages allowing the crowd to interact with concert-goers on the opposite coast.
Day two got off to a great start, but, late in the day, weather threatened to bring the event to a grinding halt. At 6:28pm, severe thunderstorm warnings caused a mandatory evacuation of all attendees while Live Nation optimistically advised people to keep their tickets for re-entry. While no one could be sure if the show would go on, most concert goers clung to hope that the storm would pass. Almost an hour later, at 7:21pm, Live Nation and Budweiser announced that the doors would reopen, the new set times were announced at 8:15, and the show started back up with only a few minor changes.
When attendees returned and Spoon took the stage, the crowd wasn’t sure whether the vibe could get back on track as morale was fading fast from the dreary weather and rain delay. Leave it to GirlTalk who saved the day with their energizing mashups and incredible energy prepping the crowd for Pharell and Kings of Leon to take the stage later that evening.
At the end of the day, Philly PR Girl is a huge supporter of the Made In America festival, and we hope that Philadelphia continues to attract the best performers to entertain its hardcore music loving citizens. Maybe next year we’ll head to LA to show them how Philly gets down…
Full Lineup:
(Saturday) Kanye West, The National, Steve Aoki, J. Cole, Chromeo, City and Colour, R3HAB, Baauer, Mayer Hawthorne, The Neighbourhood, Holy Ghost!, Glassjaw, Will Sparks, Destructo, Big Daddy Kane, DJ Cassidy, Cherub, Young & Sick, Kaneholler, Bas, Baby Baby, Pissed Jeans, OCD: Moose & Twist and The Ooohh Baby Gimme Mores.
(Sunday) Kings of Leon, Tiësto, Pharrell Williams, Girl Talk, Spoon, Grimes, AWOLNATION, Gareth Emery, Tommy Trash, KONGOS, Danny Brown, YG, Bear Hands, Penguin Prison (DJ Set with Live Vocals), 3LAU, Mimosa, Bleachers, Vacationer, Cut Snake, Bixel Boys, Misterwives, Cruiser, Nothing, The Menzingers and Man Overboard.
